VoIP is NOT Dead!

Today is January 2, 2009 and I find it real interesting some of my friends have declared 2008 as the year that VoIP died. On the eve of 2009 the promise of VoIP is alive and well and living in the hearts of many people who believe in the future of innovation in communications. Ask many of my friends including: Vint Cert, Henry Sinnreich, Joe Rinde or Daniel Berninger and they would agree with me that one day the vision and the promise of end-to-end IP based communications WILL happen. The Internet communications revolution is STILL happening. In fact, we are living in an Internet Communications Continuum. According to Wikipedia, Continuum Theory can be defined as: "anything that goes through a gradual transition from one condition, to a different condition, without any abrupt changes or "discontinuities." And when I refer to the Internet Communications Continuum, I am referring to how I envision the continued evolution of the IP Communications Industry. In my case, this continuum represents all forms of IP Communications, including: VoIP, Instant Messaging, Presence, IP Signaling, Internet TV, Unified Communications, Social Media and more. We are also living in an industrial revolution unlike anything our parents or grandparents ever experienced. Since 1993 the advent of the Internet has continued to challenge the status quo, directly and indirectly and has brought out great change in many parts of our lives. The fear, greed and disruption that the birth of the VoIP industry had on the traditional telecom industry is directly connected to this. Back in 1996, because of the accounting rates regime in place at the FCC, consumers paid a high price just to place international phone call from the United States to the rest of the world. (Dollars, not pennies). Just a few years later all of this changed because of the threat of VoIP, back in the days of dialup and before broadband became the norm. Today, there is accounting rate parity with many countries because of the promise of VoIP as an alternative communication channel. And while many people are crying that there are very thin profits these days in their revenues, I don't hear many if any consumers complaining that it costs very little to place a call to just about anywhere in the world from the United States these days. At the first VON conference which took place April 1-3, 1997 at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco, it was a gathering of people from the worlds of: Computers, Data Networking and Telecom, as well as people from the investment community and people with dreams of what could be possible when all someone needed was some software to launch a communication service. All these years later, while we have accomplished a lot, I believe the best is yet to come. I wonder how many of the people who actually believe VoIP is dead were involved in the VoIP industry at the time I introduced the concept of "Purple Minutes" back at Spring 2002 VON. I warned people as best as I could that we should use IP based communication platforms to do more than simply replace or substitute existing telecom infrastructure. To the extent that many of the people who were responsible for empowering the communication revolution eventually gave up on changing the world and ended up becoming part of the establishment rather than disrupting it, well maybe for them "VoIP is Dead" but then again, for these people VoIP died a long time ago.   When I look to the future, I believe we are just on the edge of the time when the true promise of VoIP will be realized. In order for these dreams to be realized, it will require a new group of people who believe in challenging the status quo, to stand up and be counted on. While I am looking for others to join the NEW revolution, I am ready and prepared to do what it takes to continue to push for the promise of what IP Communications can offer. So while some of my friends may declare that VoIP is Dead, I don't. "VoIP is Dead, Long Live VoIP." Jeff Pulver Thoughts / Comments - please join the conversation over at: http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/008747.html